WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When you do economic research, you have three pieces. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think of them as balls 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that I want floating up all the time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm juggling them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and one of them is the idea. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I have to begin with "What's the question, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what's important?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Narrator] Economists! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Not a group with a lot of Marys, Natashas, or Juanitas, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's caused a lot of controversy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 However, what's often overlooked are the actual female economists 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who are economics forward by addressing real world issues. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Welcome to Women in Economics. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Ilyana] One thing I definitely learned from Claudia 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is to approach economic research like a detective. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think, especially, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when you're working with economic history, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when you can't just download a cleaned-up dataset. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You really have to go searching open, dusty boxes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and look under tocks. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Lawrence] She is the consummate, economic historian. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She has been the innovator and pioneer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on bringing economical logic and historical and better data 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to understanding women's role in the economy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then she is a fantastic labor economist, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who had been a leader on work on understanding inequality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Claudia Dale Goldin was born in 1946 in the Bronx. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She was a problem-solver from the beginning. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As a child, she avoided the New York City heat 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by spending her summer days playing cards 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or reading in air-conditioned department stores. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And while she always knew 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she wanted to be a scientist of some kind, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she wasn't always set on economics. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She'll tell stories to me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about when she first went to the Natural History Museum 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when she was living in the Bronx 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and fell in love with mummies 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and thought that archeology was going to be her passion. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But then she discovered microbiology, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and she suddenly realized that microscopes uncovered 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a whole new world of discovery for her. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It wasn't until she actually went to college at Cornell 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that she first got introduced to economics. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I decided to become an economist 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because I took an economics class 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 from an amazing person named Fred Kahn. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was so excited about the field of industrial organization 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and product markets and regulation 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that it was infectious. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And in fact, when I went to graduate school 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the University of Chicago, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I went there to study Industrial Organization. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Under the mentorship of Bob Fogel, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Claudia studied American Economic History, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 particularly the economics of slavery and the post civil war south. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She had to travel to some southern states 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to gather archival materials for this research. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Goldin didn't approach this trip like a traditional economist. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She thought what I should do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is hitchhike between the different cities in the south. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She met somebody in one of the archives 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who let her stay at their place, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and when she came back, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 her advisor asked her for a list of the receipts and expenses 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 associated with the trip, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she had no clue that you were supposed to actually stay in hotels 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and pay for actual travel, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you could get reimbursements. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 By actually staying with the archivists 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and getting access to archives 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and knowledge that you wouldn't have had, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it probably created [ ] and understanding 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that wouldn't have been possible 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you were going through usual channels. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - (Narrator ) She continued to focus on economic history, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 exploring such questions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as why the north and south had different economic outcomes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 after the Civil War. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Then I remember thinking that there were interesting aspects 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in terms of child labor and families. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It suddenly occurred to me the main changes in the labor force 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 had to do with women. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Narrator] She realized 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that there was a huge story in US history 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that was missing from economist scrutiny. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that was the great evolution of women's labor force participation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The women who were working, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 from much of the history that I was looking at, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were young, single women. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But then it morphed into studying how it was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that older married women with families joined the workforce. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Goldin combined deep archival research, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 history, and economics 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to conduct study after study, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 examining how various dimensions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of women's participation in the US labor force 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 evolved over 200 years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Goldin's best known for her contributions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the economic subgender. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She sort of pioneers that area. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [ ] She has been thinking about things that no one had known, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like why is it that women's jobs 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were much more likely to be paid piece rate, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and men's jobs, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 why is money taken away and given to their parents, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the important role in caring for the family 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and how that affects the labor market. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She just has a determination to figure out what's true, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to find the new data, to read the historical sources, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to think about what the actual people making decisions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One of the huge advantages we have as economists, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we can actually read the diaries 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of actual people making these decisions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and talk to them and interview them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when we're doing contemporaneous work 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or read their inner thoughts. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Narrator] As just one example, Goldin 's exhaustive research 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has lead her to identify four phases, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 going back to the late 19th century 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that shaped women's role in the US economy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The first three phases were revolutionary. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 While important advances were made through the evolutionary phases, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 women also had limited control 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 over key decisions affecting their employment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Women in those periods 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 were more likely to view their working lives as intermittent 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and a means to put food on the table. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Then came the quiet revolution, starting in the late 1970s. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Women of the quiet revolution generally reviewed their careers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a significant part of their personal identity 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and make their own decisions about their working lives. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Goldin found that this latest phase 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was triggered mainly by increased investments in education 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and increased availability of contraceptives. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Edward] More than any other person, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she has been central in the study of women and work in economics. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She gave it a broad, historical sweep, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she tied it to economic theory in a tight way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Anyone who works on the issue of women and work going forward 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 will be citing Claudia Goldin and will be influenced by her. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Working together with Larry Katz, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she's also done critical research about education, technology, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the extreme dangers of income and inequality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [ ] She was among the first to document 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what we now think of as a U- shape of inequality 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 over the 20th century. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To this day, economists are still trying to figure out 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the determinants of that U-shape. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Narrator] As the first woman to be offered [ ] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the Harvard Economics Department, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 she also takes her role 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of mentoring the next generation of economists seriously. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [ ] As any graduate student will tell you, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 advisors play a critical role. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's these personal touches 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that make Claudia Goldin such a wonderful advisor. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Whether it's walking her dog, Pika, with her, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 receiving midnight texts from her that always made me laugh. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [ ] She's not always serious, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which, of course, is, I think, very important 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because if someone's constantly serious, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's just so intimidating as a student. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In 2014, Goldin started 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the Undergraduate Women in Economics Program, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a broad initiative to encourage more female economics majors. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [ ] When I'm doing my best research, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I am reminded what I learned from Claudia, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and how research can be fun 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and how it's a mystery that you want to unravel. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [ ] She brings a joy to her research. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were famously called the "dismal science." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was certainly when Claudia Goldin does at economics 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 isn't anything but dismal. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - [Narrator] Want to better understand Goldin 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and her contributions to labor economics? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Click here for related materials and practice questions, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or check out other videos 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on how economists are tackling all sorts of issues, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ranging from weighty topics, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 such as the Great Recession and public health 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to everyday topics, like wine-- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 yes, even wine!